WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.408 --> 00:00:04.550
You're listening to Strictly Business
Podcast with Lindsay Williams.

2
00:00:05.370 --> 00:00:09.432
It's Thursday, so it's time for the 5
o'clock shadow with Viv Govender and David

3
00:00:09.432 --> 00:00:09.472
Shapiro,

4
00:00:09.512 --> 00:00:15.494
except it's not the 5 o'clock shadow
because it's not 5 o'clock yet and David

5
00:00:15.494 --> 00:00:17.494
Shapiro has cried off with some excuse.

6
00:00:17.494 --> 00:00:21.197
So Viv and I are going to tackle the world
together, but who needs more than Viv

7
00:00:21.197 --> 00:00:23.197
Govender, especially Viv,

8
00:00:23.197 --> 00:00:27.079
when software companies have been under
the spotlight so vigorously this week,

9
00:00:27.079 --> 00:00:27.219
haven't they?

10
00:00:27.219 --> 00:00:28.440
What on earth has happened?

11
00:00:28.980 --> 00:00:29.680
Well, I mean, I think...

12
00:00:29.760 --> 00:00:35.243
what's been happening is people are
looking at what the future holds for AI,

13
00:00:35.243 --> 00:00:35.383
etc.,

14
00:00:35.683 --> 00:00:40.026
and are thinking that maybe we are seeing
a situation in which some of these

15
00:00:40.026 --> 00:00:40.126
companies'

16
00:00:40.126 --> 00:00:44.448
future growth is not going to be what
people think.

17
00:00:45.549 --> 00:00:51.292
I think, quite frankly, it may be
over-predicting basically the impact of AI

18
00:00:51.292 --> 00:00:53.292
at the moment.

19
00:00:53.292 --> 00:00:58.436
But if you forecast into the future, I do
think that it's reasonable to assume

20
00:00:59.060 --> 00:01:05.865
that in a couple of years' time, we are
likely to see some impact of AI on these

21
00:01:05.865 --> 00:01:06.064
companies'

22
00:01:06.064 --> 00:01:06.585
revenue, etc.

23
00:01:06.926 --> 00:01:07.866
I saw an example.

24
00:01:08.226 --> 00:01:11.829
It was something to do with a legal
software package,

25
00:01:12.209 --> 00:01:16.872
which analysed cases and illegal law over
time periods.

26
00:01:16.873 --> 00:01:18.854
And they said that AI has completely
replaced that.

27
00:01:19.114 --> 00:01:25.158
So this company was selling this software
package, not out of business, but

28
00:01:25.158 --> 00:01:27.158
certainly having its business impacted.

29
00:01:27.158 --> 00:01:27.620
Is that something that's likely to be
across the board?

30
00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:33.164
Yeah, I mean, for instance, I don't know
why someone would use something like one

31
00:01:33.164 --> 00:01:35.164
of those language training programs, you
know,

32
00:01:35.164 --> 00:01:37.327
when you could do it with the AI systems
at the moment.

33
00:01:37.687 --> 00:01:40.489
And I think it gives you a better tutoring
kind of result.

34
00:01:41.389 --> 00:01:47.854
I mean, some of the educational stuff I've
already, I mean, I've like, you know, used

35
00:01:47.854 --> 00:01:49.854
Gemini and even

36
00:01:49.854 --> 00:01:52.477
ChatGPT recently to learn about new
topics.

37
00:01:54.218 --> 00:01:59.710
You can go in depth in ways that you'd be
You're pressed to find any kind of other

38
00:01:59.710 --> 00:02:01.710
system letting you get there.

39
00:02:01.710 --> 00:02:06.014
I mean, if you do physics, you can talk
about quarks or Gemini at a level that

40
00:02:06.014 --> 00:02:08.014
you'd have to find a university professor
to help you out with.

41
00:02:08.014 --> 00:02:12.598
But I mean, language stuff, you know, any
kind of thing to do with, like you said,

42
00:02:12.598 --> 00:02:14.598
with the legal system, etc.

43
00:02:14.598 --> 00:02:18.021
These LLMs have gotten to a point right
now where they are real competition for

44
00:02:18.021 --> 00:02:20.021
these programs.

45
00:02:20.021 --> 00:02:22.304
Talking about Gemini, and you've mentioned
Gemini almost every time we speak, Viv.

46
00:02:23.304 --> 00:02:26.487
use Gemini, I use Copilot, I use Grok
quite a lot.

47
00:02:26.527 --> 00:02:27.848
I also like DeepSeek.

48
00:02:27.849 --> 00:02:33.032
I don't know if you ever used DeepSeek,
but did you see that article that I sent

49
00:02:33.032 --> 00:02:35.032
you from the Guardian newspaper in the UK,

50
00:02:35.032 --> 00:02:38.857
which looked at the personalities and the
traits of each of the AI apps?

51
00:02:38.977 --> 00:02:42.620
It's very interesting to say one does
this, one does that, one does the other.

52
00:02:42.700 --> 00:02:44.662
Did you agree with what you read, if you
read it?

53
00:02:45.242 --> 00:02:51.928
I did, but I also think that, okay, look,
I'm sure you've seen the French case

54
00:02:51.928 --> 00:02:53.928
against Grok.

55
00:02:53.928 --> 00:02:54.145
Yes.

56
00:02:54.145 --> 00:02:55.986
With regards to making lewd images, et
cetera.

57
00:02:56.947 --> 00:03:02.250
You know, irrespective of the morality of
it, I think there is a desire for this

58
00:03:02.250 --> 00:03:02.390
kind of stuff,

59
00:03:02.390 --> 00:03:06.772
or this stuff that goes against the terms
and conditions of the providers out there.

60
00:03:07.233 --> 00:03:13.376
And I think what's going to happen in the
future is that people are not going to be

61
00:03:13.376 --> 00:03:15.376
satisfied with accepting Grok's
personality or Gemini's personality, et

62
00:03:15.376 --> 00:03:17.376
cetera,

63
00:03:17.376 --> 00:03:19.376
which is quite similar to what you talked
about in the article.

64
00:03:19.376 --> 00:03:19.940
And what you're seeing with things like
these malt pot.

65
00:03:20.460 --> 00:03:23.141
which we discussed, I think, a while back
when it was called Cloudbot two weeks ago.

66
00:03:24.781 --> 00:03:29.543
And with Maltbot, what you'd like to find
is people are going to basically have a

67
00:03:29.543 --> 00:03:31.543
personalized

68
00:03:31.543 --> 00:03:33.584
kind of thing that does what they want in
the way they want it to be done.

69
00:03:34.604 --> 00:03:41.546
And if you can't find, for instance, like
you said, a grok or an alphabet, et

70
00:03:41.546 --> 00:03:41.927
cetera,

71
00:03:41.927 --> 00:03:44.307
you'll use a deep secret, a Kimi, which is
the new one from China,

72
00:03:45.367 --> 00:03:49.468
running your own server to do the things
you want it to do in the ways you want it

73
00:03:49.468 --> 00:03:49.728
to do it.

74
00:03:49.728 --> 00:03:56.638
uh because uh if you asked grok or you
asked uh you know chat gpt or whatever

75
00:03:56.638 --> 00:03:58.638
they would quite likely refuse

76
00:03:58.638 --> 00:04:03.047
you or maybe even call the authorities
depending on what you're asking you to do

77
00:04:03.047 --> 00:04:05.047
you know what i mean um and it need not be
something as as extreme as what

78
00:04:05.047 --> 00:04:09.757
grok's been accused of right now i mean uh
there are For instance, certain

79
00:04:09.757 --> 00:04:11.757
restrictions on, you know,

80
00:04:11.757 --> 00:04:15.600
Holocaust denial, for instance, in France,
that would obviously run afoul of the law

81
00:04:15.600 --> 00:04:15.940
there.

82
00:04:15.940 --> 00:04:19.422
But you could basically get a local system
to do whatever you want with regards to

83
00:04:19.422 --> 00:04:19.803
that.

84
00:04:20.383 --> 00:04:26.987
So, yeah, I think that the future is not
going to be you accepting Grok or you

85
00:04:26.987 --> 00:04:28.987
accepting Gemini's personality.

86
00:04:28.987 --> 00:04:33.391
It's you crafting a personality on your
own local device, which may use Grok

87
00:04:33.391 --> 00:04:35.391
underlying it, or may use an open source
system underlying it.

88
00:04:35.391 --> 00:04:41.043
I asked one of the apps, I said, can you
please analyse the breakdown,

89
00:04:41.044 --> 00:04:46.486
can you give me a breakdown of the staff
at Mar-a-Lago, how many, what their race

90
00:04:46.486 --> 00:04:48.486
is, what their gender is, etc.

91
00:04:48.486 --> 00:04:49.808
And it said, no, I'm sorry, we can't do
that.

92
00:04:49.809 --> 00:04:54.971
And the reason I did it, of course, is
because of Trump's recent pronouncements

93
00:04:54.971 --> 00:04:56.971
in the last few hours

94
00:04:56.971 --> 00:05:01.194
saying that a certain company has too many
of this type of person and not enough of

95
00:05:01.194 --> 00:05:03.194
another type of person,

96
00:05:03.194 --> 00:05:05.194
which is blatant.

97
00:05:05.194 --> 00:05:09.381
stupid in my opinion but that's just me
but this particular uh act wouldn't um

98
00:05:09.381 --> 00:05:11.381
wouldn't

99
00:05:11.381 --> 00:05:16.767
analyze it for me because of obviously the
trump factor and also another thing i

100
00:05:16.767 --> 00:05:18.767
asked a simple question is

101
00:05:18.767 --> 00:05:23.633
there a market for this type of book
covering this type of subject which

102
00:05:23.633 --> 00:05:25.633
because i was thinking of embarking on
writing

103
00:05:25.633 --> 00:05:30.699
one and i got so many different answers
from so many different sources one says

104
00:05:30.699 --> 00:05:32.699
yes fantastic idea this is how you do it
the other one said no

105
00:05:32.699 --> 00:05:34.699
Yeah.

106
00:05:34.699 --> 00:05:36.699
No, nobody's going to read that.

107
00:05:36.699 --> 00:05:38.699
Very interesting, Viv.

108
00:05:38.699 --> 00:05:40.699
They've developed their own personalities.

109
00:05:40.699 --> 00:05:42.699
Yeah, most certainly.

110
00:05:42.699 --> 00:05:44.464
And look, also, they've learned what,
remember, the way this works is that you

111
00:05:44.464 --> 00:05:46.464
get this thing trained to get this kind of
lump of

112
00:05:46.464 --> 00:05:47.406
intelligence, and then that's kind of
fine-tuned with human interaction.

113
00:05:47.866 --> 00:05:50.027
And over time, it learns what humans want
it to say.

114
00:05:50.067 --> 00:05:56.769
So some things, like the earlier version
of ChatGPT, were super kind of flattering,

115
00:05:56.769 --> 00:05:58.769
super kind of, you know,

116
00:05:58.769 --> 00:06:00.211
CQS, green with everything you said, so
you say the world is flat as it, by God.

117
00:06:00.615 --> 00:06:02.235
You're such a genius to figure this out.

118
00:06:02.275 --> 00:06:05.256
The world needs to know more about your
genius, et cetera, et cetera.

119
00:06:05.736 --> 00:06:07.577
And obviously the dangers that come from
that.

120
00:06:07.637 --> 00:06:10.158
And I think that they still,

121
00:06:10.198 --> 00:06:16.619
that obviously the pleasing aspect that
these things want to make sure they make

122
00:06:16.619 --> 00:06:18.619
you happy because that's what they've been
trained on, not to be correct,

123
00:06:18.619 --> 00:06:22.401
but to make the person inputting questions
happy or prompts happy.

124
00:06:23.021 --> 00:06:24.782
And so there is that danger.

125
00:06:24.882 --> 00:06:28.123
It does not give you the right answer when
you do ask it for things.

126
00:06:28.503 --> 00:06:33.226
But like I said, I mean, I see the future
and let me tell you not I mean not this

127
00:06:33.226 --> 00:06:35.226
year or next year but in a few years time

128
00:06:35.226 --> 00:06:40.532
I don't see why or how it's not a case
where everybody has their own kind of um

129
00:06:40.532 --> 00:06:42.532
bolt port or whatever the version

130
00:06:42.532 --> 00:06:47.458
that is in the future an agent running
that uses an underlying I know AI using

131
00:06:47.458 --> 00:06:49.458
multiple AIs underlying it but that

132
00:06:49.458 --> 00:06:51.521
bolt port is kind of tuned to what your
level of sarcasm what your level of

133
00:06:51.521 --> 00:06:53.521
interest the

134
00:06:53.521 --> 00:06:58.087
way these things work is they need to have
this huge context windows which has all

135
00:06:58.087 --> 00:07:00.087
the information it has about you uh to
basically give you the right kind of on

136
00:07:00.087 --> 00:07:02.087
some.

137
00:07:02.087 --> 00:07:02.409
And I think that is something I think
probably these different things don't

138
00:07:02.409 --> 00:07:02.729
have,

139
00:07:02.729 --> 00:07:07.791
because maybe Gemini has information about
you in certain aspects that maybe ChatGPT

140
00:07:07.791 --> 00:07:09.791
doesn't.

141
00:07:09.791 --> 00:07:10.912
And that's why it's giving you different
answers as to what it thinks will make you

142
00:07:10.912 --> 00:07:11.332
happy.

143
00:07:11.933 --> 00:07:16.574
Well, don't forget, of course, there was
the very famous and very disturbing case

144
00:07:16.574 --> 00:07:18.574
of a South Korean woman

145
00:07:18.574 --> 00:07:20.336
who married her ChatGPT assistant.

146
00:07:20.356 --> 00:07:21.216
There was a ceremony.

147
00:07:21.296 --> 00:07:23.297
She wore a dress and everything else.

148
00:07:23.298 --> 00:07:24.798
And she was perfectly serious about this.

149
00:07:25.158 --> 00:07:27.639
she found that a human couldn't...

150
00:07:27.999 --> 00:07:30.340
be as nice and, as you said earlier on,

151
00:07:30.360 --> 00:07:36.863
obsequious as a chat GPT man or assistant
did, whatever you call them.

152
00:07:37.423 --> 00:07:38.183
Very interesting.

153
00:07:38.463 --> 00:07:39.944
We have to get away from that.

154
00:07:40.024 --> 00:07:46.967
No, we don't get away from tech because
the amount of volatility in this tech

155
00:07:46.967 --> 00:07:48.967
stocks rivals that of precious metals
recently.

156
00:07:48.967 --> 00:07:49.428
I mean, I saw AMD doing one thing.

157
00:07:49.488 --> 00:07:52.469
I saw PayPal doing another the other day.

158
00:07:52.629 --> 00:07:56.591
And it's not uncommon to see, you know,
10, 15, 20 percent moves.

159
00:07:56.871 --> 00:07:57.571
in a day.

160
00:07:57.571 --> 00:08:00.012
I mean, that's pretty uncommon, I would
say.

161
00:08:00.972 --> 00:08:02.032
Yeah, it is uncommon.

162
00:08:02.292 --> 00:08:07.314
But it's, again, a function of just, like
you said, AMD, right, down, you know, 10

163
00:08:07.314 --> 00:08:09.314
plus percent.

164
00:08:09.314 --> 00:08:11.415
But if you look at the one year
performance of this thing, it's up still

165
00:08:11.415 --> 00:08:13.415
78%.

166
00:08:13.415 --> 00:08:14.836
When you've done it before this, almost a
90% run in a year,

167
00:08:15.836 --> 00:08:19.837
the market basically needs to have some
pretty strong numbers to justify keeping

168
00:08:19.837 --> 00:08:20.017
that up.

169
00:08:20.137 --> 00:08:23.938
And if you disappoint even slightly, a 10%
pullback in a day is not impossible.

170
00:08:24.078 --> 00:08:25.899
I mean, another example I would put is
Palantir.

171
00:08:25.919 --> 00:08:30.302
I mean, Yes, this share price is down
dramatically in the last month or so, down

172
00:08:30.302 --> 00:08:30.542
20%.

173
00:08:31.243 --> 00:08:36.647
But if you give it a five-year chart on
this thing, this thing is up three times

174
00:08:36.647 --> 00:08:38.647
plus in the last five years.

175
00:08:38.647 --> 00:08:40.130
Again, when you build in these kind of
expectations, that's when you have the

176
00:08:40.130 --> 00:08:40.431
pullbacks.

177
00:08:40.431 --> 00:08:42.152
That's why we saw the same kind of thing
happening with silver and gold.

178
00:08:42.592 --> 00:08:49.318
Yes, they came back dramatically, but the
silver price fell after running up to

179
00:08:49.318 --> 00:08:51.318
about $120 an ounce.

180
00:08:51.318 --> 00:08:53.361
The gold price fell after going up to
$5,500 an ounce.

181
00:08:53.401 --> 00:08:55.083
Silver was below $40 last year.

182
00:08:56.504 --> 00:08:58.445
gold was below 3,000 last year.

183
00:08:59.045 --> 00:09:04.168
When you do these kind of moves, these
volatile pullbacks are what you'd expect

184
00:09:04.168 --> 00:09:06.168
irrespective of the underlying asset
class.

185
00:09:06.168 --> 00:09:07.970
What do you make of precious metals as we
get away from tech now?

186
00:09:08.010 --> 00:09:11.992
Because this time last week, when you,
myself and David Shapiro were talking,

187
00:09:11.993 --> 00:09:18.215
the gold price actually went to a high
$5,625 and that's within 24 hours, Viv.

188
00:09:18.235 --> 00:09:20.837
It was down below 4,500 briefly.

189
00:09:21.197 --> 00:09:24.339
It's bounced back to above 5,000, now
below there again.

190
00:09:24.679 --> 00:09:25.719
It's all over the place.

191
00:09:25.799 --> 00:09:27.240
Silver did the same thing.

192
00:09:27.260 --> 00:09:33.763
And many people saying that the volatility
in the speculative silver market led gold

193
00:09:33.763 --> 00:09:35.763
up and down and pulled it around a bit.

194
00:09:35.763 --> 00:09:39.605
But as you quite rightly say, when things
do so well, of course, there's going to be

195
00:09:39.605 --> 00:09:41.605
corrections.

196
00:09:41.605 --> 00:09:46.528
But it does tell you that there is a big
speculative bubble right at the top of the

197
00:09:46.528 --> 00:09:48.528
performance of the

198
00:09:48.528 --> 00:09:50.309
graphs of both AI stocks and precious
metal stocks.

199
00:09:51.570 --> 00:09:52.270
Yeah.

200
00:09:52.270 --> 00:09:53.151
The only question is, are these things
real?

201
00:09:53.531 --> 00:09:57.298
and the the the one thing I would say is
look at what Google is doing at the moment

202
00:09:57.298 --> 00:09:59.298
with their CapEx.

203
00:09:59.298 --> 00:10:01.837
The market expected $119 billion of capex
from Google.

204
00:10:01.838 --> 00:10:05.560
They're getting somewhere like 50% more
than that, which is an insane number.

205
00:10:06.281 --> 00:10:10.464
The market basically obviously ran up on
gold and silver, but why is it doing that?

206
00:10:10.824 --> 00:10:13.066
And I think the reason is fundamentally
strong.

207
00:10:13.086 --> 00:10:15.308
I mean, there's two reasons to buy gold
right at the moment.

208
00:10:15.548 --> 00:10:18.671
One is obviously the gold is a safe haven.

209
00:10:18.731 --> 00:10:21.713
The other is gold has demand for jewelry
and other things.

210
00:10:22.534 --> 00:10:27.138
I think the safe haven reserve demand for
gold is getting a stronger and stronger

211
00:10:27.138 --> 00:10:29.138
case going forward.

212
00:10:29.138 --> 00:10:31.871
Because of the fact that people are
turning away from the US dollar, right now

213
00:10:31.871 --> 00:10:33.871
the US dollar is more than half of global
reserves.

214
00:10:33.871 --> 00:10:34.972
No country I know should be happy with
that.

215
00:10:35.652 --> 00:10:41.534
Even strong allies like Denmark, if you
call it an ally anymore, or the EU, or

216
00:10:41.534 --> 00:10:41.754
Canada,

217
00:10:42.374 --> 00:10:45.415
but certainly not places like India or
China.

218
00:10:45.715 --> 00:10:51.377
In those countries, I mean, you want to
replace gold, the US dollar with something

219
00:10:51.377 --> 00:10:53.377
else, what are your choices?

220
00:10:53.377 --> 00:10:55.377
Is it the euro?

221
00:10:55.377 --> 00:10:55.538
That's almost the same as the US dollar
because of the strong links those

222
00:10:55.538 --> 00:10:57.538
countries have.

223
00:10:57.538 --> 00:10:58.239
Gold and silver become the only things you
can do.

224
00:10:58.320 --> 00:11:00.841
And unfortunately, there's not that much
of that in the world.

225
00:11:00.861 --> 00:11:06.305
I mean, if you had to basically replace
the US dollar entirely with gold and

226
00:11:06.305 --> 00:11:08.305
world's reserves,

227
00:11:08.305 --> 00:11:09.407
the gold price would be closer to 100,000
than to 5,000.

228
00:11:09.547 --> 00:11:10.247
You know what I mean?

229
00:11:11.308 --> 00:11:13.190
And the same thing applies to silver.

230
00:11:13.670 --> 00:11:16.552
So I think that's what's happening right
now is that there is a fundamental shift.

231
00:11:17.152 --> 00:11:23.337
The future is more gold in the world's
reserves than currently is there at the

232
00:11:23.337 --> 00:11:25.337
expense usually of the US dollar.

233
00:11:25.337 --> 00:11:25.398
That's going to result in a higher gold
price.

234
00:11:25.682 --> 00:11:29.965
Whatever move happens in one day or
happens over multiple years, I think is

235
00:11:29.965 --> 00:11:31.965
what the question is at the moment.

236
00:11:31.965 --> 00:11:37.030
The big question was over the last couple
of years is will Bitcoin replace all these

237
00:11:37.030 --> 00:11:39.030
other instruments that you've

238
00:11:39.030 --> 00:11:41.030
just mentioned?

239
00:11:41.030 --> 00:11:43.030
Bitcoin plus other cryptocurrencies.

240
00:11:43.030 --> 00:11:45.030
There's a proliferation.

241
00:11:45.030 --> 00:11:47.030
I've got this website that I look at and
it says cryptocurrencies.

242
00:11:47.030 --> 00:11:47.197
You click on it and it just keeps on going
and going and going.

243
00:11:47.217 --> 00:11:48.898
These coins that you've never even heard
of.

244
00:11:49.238 --> 00:11:50.119
Let's have a look at Bitcoin.

245
00:11:50.579 --> 00:11:54.722
Just creeping back up over 70,000 as we
speak.

246
00:11:54.982 --> 00:11:57.764
It was 126,000 in October.

247
00:11:58.204 --> 00:12:05.087
And all the talk of Trump making the
United States the crypto capital of the

248
00:12:05.087 --> 00:12:07.087
world drove it up

249
00:12:07.087 --> 00:12:07.489
a lot, I have to say, all that rhetoric.

250
00:12:07.969 --> 00:12:09.850
And Eric and Don Jr.

251
00:12:10.130 --> 00:12:15.673
going to Dubai and sitting on stages and
sweating away and talking crypto up.

252
00:12:16.153 --> 00:12:17.054
It's all fizzled out.

253
00:12:17.414 --> 00:12:18.855
It's 45% lower.

254
00:12:19.595 --> 00:12:24.358
Is this the end of it or is this just like
silver or gold or certain?

255
00:12:24.738 --> 00:12:27.600
tech stocks, it has to come down after
such a run.

256
00:12:28.321 --> 00:12:30.742
Look, I mean, crypto is famous for these
pullbacks.

257
00:12:30.743 --> 00:12:37.687
I mean, we saw, for instance, back in 2022
or something, it was down below 20,000,

258
00:12:37.907 --> 00:12:38.607
you know what I mean?

259
00:12:39.668 --> 00:12:44.012
And this was from being above 60,000 in
2021.

260
00:12:44.013 --> 00:12:47.374
And if you look at that kind of move, it's
basically lost two thirds of the value.

261
00:12:47.434 --> 00:12:53.258
So if you look at going to 120, to do a
similar kind of move there, you'd have to

262
00:12:53.258 --> 00:12:55.258
go below 40,000.

263
00:12:55.258 --> 00:12:56.519
to do a move of more than, say,
two-thirds.

264
00:12:57.679 --> 00:13:01.380
Right now, I think my number is about
69,900 or so at the moment.

265
00:13:01.420 --> 00:13:03.321
Yes, exactly.

266
00:13:03.781 --> 00:13:07.342
And so I think, quite frankly, this is
something to be expected with these

267
00:13:07.342 --> 00:13:07.523
currencies.

268
00:13:07.682 --> 00:13:13.344
I think they are, unfortunately at the
moment, an entirely speculative asset

269
00:13:13.344 --> 00:13:13.483
class.

270
00:13:13.924 --> 00:13:20.766
There's no real use case for even Bitcoin,
which is the most stable or the most

271
00:13:20.766 --> 00:13:22.766
established of these cryptocurrencies.

272
00:13:22.766 --> 00:13:27.525
If you're doing any transaction with
crypto that you wouldn't want to do with

273
00:13:27.525 --> 00:13:29.525
the banking sector, my question is why are
you doing that?

274
00:13:29.525 --> 00:13:30.527
And generally, it's because you're trying
to evade some kind of laws or regulations.

275
00:13:32.448 --> 00:13:35.350
If you look at crypto's usefulness at the
moment,

276
00:13:35.970 --> 00:13:41.673
the primary usefulness for transactions is
either something that's semi or totally

277
00:13:41.673 --> 00:13:43.673
illegal, quite frankly.

278
00:13:43.673 --> 00:13:45.755
And that's sort of a great foundation
going forward.

279
00:13:46.176 --> 00:13:48.397
And other than that, the main use is
speculative.

280
00:13:48.437 --> 00:13:50.298
Basically, people buy it for the value to
go up.

281
00:13:50.778 --> 00:13:54.839
It's not like it's like basically you
don't have dollars in your account because

282
00:13:54.839 --> 00:13:56.839
you want the dollar value to go up.

283
00:13:56.839 --> 00:13:59.901
You have dollars in your account because
you want to have, you know, some stable

284
00:13:59.901 --> 00:14:01.901
currency that you need to spend elsewhere.

285
00:14:01.901 --> 00:14:04.483
Until crypto becomes something like that
there, unfortunately, these fluctuations

286
00:14:04.483 --> 00:14:06.483
are just something to be expected.

287
00:14:06.483 --> 00:14:07.243
Quickly, we must look at the U.S.

288
00:14:07.323 --> 00:14:08.904
jobs data which came out today.

289
00:14:08.924 --> 00:14:13.986
The ADP numbers showing a soggy, a soggy
jobs market.

290
00:14:14.946 --> 00:14:19.570
Real jobs numbers, the non-farm payrolls,
which we expect on the first Friday of

291
00:14:19.570 --> 00:14:19.670
every month,

292
00:14:19.670 --> 00:14:24.394
have been cancelled again because of
shutdown problems in the United States of

293
00:14:24.394 --> 00:14:24.654
America.

294
00:14:24.654 --> 00:14:28.538
But also, I would imagine that the Bureau
of Labor Statistics, its new people there,

295
00:14:28.818 --> 00:14:31.640
are massaging the numbers on behalf of the
president.

296
00:14:31.660 --> 00:14:32.781
That's what a cynic would say.

297
00:14:33.102 --> 00:14:34.082
But anyway, U.S.

298
00:14:34.163 --> 00:14:36.304
jobs numbers, not particularly good.

299
00:14:36.645 --> 00:14:42.770
Before we go, Viv, any tech stories that
we haven't covered, I introduced with the

300
00:14:42.770 --> 00:14:44.770
software woes.

301
00:14:44.770 --> 00:14:45.211
What have you seen in the last week since
we spoke?

302
00:14:45.331 --> 00:14:46.151
Anything interesting?

303
00:14:46.711 --> 00:14:53.294
Well, speaking of those jobs numbers, I
mean, I think half of the jobs cuts

304
00:14:53.294 --> 00:14:55.294
announced in January by like three
companies was Dow, Inc.,

305
00:14:55.294 --> 00:14:59.357
UPS, and Amazon, which was basically the
major things there.

306
00:14:59.358 --> 00:15:01.257
I mean, I think UPS was 30,000 jobs.

307
00:15:01.377 --> 00:15:03.018
Amazon was like 16,000 jobs.

308
00:15:03.918 --> 00:15:09.581
So I do think that's obviously and Dow, I
think, was just under 5,000 jobs, so it

309
00:15:09.581 --> 00:15:09.661
wasn't as much.

310
00:15:10.641 --> 00:15:12.842
So these kind of things, I think, are
quite...

311
00:15:12.942 --> 00:15:13.642
concentrated.

312
00:15:13.983 --> 00:15:16.044
There's questions as to whether or not
this is AI related.

313
00:15:16.764 --> 00:15:23.208
I think with the Amazon one, there's a
question not just whether it's AI

314
00:15:23.208 --> 00:15:25.208
replacing jobs or whether or not they need
to cut the jobs to get free up enough

315
00:15:25.208 --> 00:15:27.208
money to invest in AI.

316
00:15:27.208 --> 00:15:29.971
And the other thing I think that we need
to discuss, of course, or that's important

317
00:15:29.971 --> 00:15:31.971
to have noted, is those alphabet numbers.

318
00:15:31.971 --> 00:15:34.294
The CapEx spending in alphabet is just, I
think, enormous by any means,

319
00:15:35.254 --> 00:15:37.255
approaching $200 billion over the next
year.

320
00:15:38.596 --> 00:15:39.937
Countries don't do this, you know what I
mean?

321
00:15:40.157 --> 00:15:42.418
This is not something even that China and
than the US does on individual.

322
00:15:42.854 --> 00:15:47.316
Infrastructure prices, we're talking about
building power systems or power grids or

323
00:15:47.316 --> 00:15:49.316
building highway systems.

324
00:15:49.316 --> 00:15:51.316
They don't build this kind of money.

325
00:15:51.316 --> 00:15:53.316
A private company is doing this.

326
00:15:53.316 --> 00:15:56.960
And the question I would say is this, if
the guys with the most information and

327
00:15:56.960 --> 00:15:58.960
consider to be the smartest guy in the
group,

328
00:15:58.960 --> 00:16:03.642
in the world basically, are accelerating
the amount that they're spending on this

329
00:16:03.642 --> 00:16:05.642
technology, what does it mean?

330
00:16:05.642 --> 00:16:08.244
It's more likely not to mean that they are
seeing things behind the scenes that we

331
00:16:08.244 --> 00:16:10.244
just don't see at the moment,

332
00:16:10.244 --> 00:16:12.106
probably showing that there's no wall,
there's no plateau.

333
00:16:12.747 --> 00:16:17.322
And we are likely to see a very
interesting next couple of years as the

334
00:16:17.322 --> 00:16:19.322
technology that they see right now.

335
00:16:19.322 --> 00:16:24.951
they give to us in a six months to a
year's time or is it the fear of missing

336
00:16:24.951 --> 00:16:26.951
out because other companies are doing it
they've got to do it and they've got to be

337
00:16:26.951 --> 00:16:28.951
seen to be

338
00:16:28.951 --> 00:16:31.915
the ones that are spending the most on
capex is it is that a factor but

339
00:16:31.915 --> 00:16:33.915
potentially because at some stage people
are going to say okay how

340
00:16:33.915 --> 00:16:37.798
much how much more sophisticated can
artificial intelligence become without

341
00:16:37.798 --> 00:16:39.798
creating

342
00:16:39.798 --> 00:16:44.721
something that is better than the human
brain which arguably they've already done

343
00:16:44.721 --> 00:16:46.721
yeah look i mean the thing with that

344
00:16:46.721 --> 00:16:50.561
i think it's interesting i don't know if i
mention this to you or not but The

345
00:16:50.561 --> 00:16:52.561
multi-bot technology or the cloud-bot
technology,

346
00:16:52.561 --> 00:16:57.985
it's the first time that you're seeing
this wide-spect technology use that's

347
00:16:57.985 --> 00:16:59.985
actually making people use up their tokens
and buy more tokens or

348
00:16:59.985 --> 00:17:01.985
upgrade their plans.

349
00:17:01.985 --> 00:17:06.610
I mean, if you just used AI and just asked
a few questions, often you can get away

350
00:17:06.610 --> 00:17:08.610
with just using the free systems.

351
00:17:08.610 --> 00:17:12.774
And we can just go and basically use even
the AI available on the Google search bar,

352
00:17:12.774 --> 00:17:14.774
you know what I mean?

353
00:17:14.774 --> 00:17:16.774
The AI mode there.

354
00:17:16.774 --> 00:17:21.814
But when you use these agents, when you
use these things like Mallport, etc.,

355
00:17:21.814 --> 00:17:23.814
suddenly you find yourself using $100 of
tokens in a day or maybe even more.

356
00:17:23.814 --> 00:17:28.997
And that scenario here, I think that is
the killer app that gets you to the point

357
00:17:28.997 --> 00:17:30.997
in which people are using

358
00:17:30.997 --> 00:17:34.239
a lot more of this technology than they
were in the past and spending more on it,

359
00:17:34.239 --> 00:17:36.239
more importantly, than they were in the
past.

360
00:17:36.239 --> 00:17:41.742
And I think that if you were just trying
to keep up with the Joneses, you might be

361
00:17:41.742 --> 00:17:43.742
willing to spend what was expected, $120
billion,

362
00:17:43.742 --> 00:17:45.742
maybe $130 billion, but not.

363
00:17:45.742 --> 00:17:47.742
190 billion?

364
00:17:47.742 --> 00:17:47.917
Why are you spending 50% more than the
market expects?

365
00:17:48.217 --> 00:17:49.018
That's just not keeping up.

366
00:17:49.518 --> 00:17:53.440
And the next thing to note is that Google,
on a different basis,

367
00:17:54.061 --> 00:17:56.922
is actually becoming a real player in the
hardware space.

368
00:17:58.163 --> 00:18:03.366
Anthropic, as well as Apple, are likely to
be using Google chips to help build their

369
00:18:03.366 --> 00:18:03.465
systems.

370
00:18:03.606 --> 00:18:08.769
And that means that if you look at the
biggest hardware producer out there, which

371
00:18:08.769 --> 00:18:10.769
is obviously NVIDIA, or producer,

372
00:18:10.769 --> 00:18:12.831
but the player in the hardware space is
NVIDIA, they don't actually produce, they

373
00:18:12.831 --> 00:18:12.871
just design.

374
00:18:13.579 --> 00:18:14.919
Does the company work more than Google?

375
00:18:15.980 --> 00:18:22.241
And I think that's also maybe indicating
that maybe Google is seeing or Alford is

376
00:18:22.241 --> 00:18:24.241
seeing an opportunity here to encroach on
a space that

377
00:18:24.241 --> 00:18:24.822
it's only been a bit player at the moment.

378
00:18:25.042 --> 00:18:26.183
It never stops, does it?

379
00:18:26.303 --> 00:18:27.563
There'll be something new next week.

380
00:18:27.583 --> 00:18:30.104
And next week, we will speak to you with
David Shapiro.

381
00:18:30.204 --> 00:18:31.944
Viv, thank you very much for your time.

382
00:18:31.984 --> 00:18:35.105
That was Viv Govender from the
award-winning RAN Swiss.

383
00:18:35.185 --> 00:18:36.805
And that was not the 5 o'clock shadow.

384
00:18:37.085 --> 00:18:42.427
The views and opinions expressed in these
podcasts are those of Lindsay Williams and

385
00:18:42.427 --> 00:18:44.427
various contributors.

386
00:18:44.427 --> 00:18:48.552
and do not reflect the policy, position,
or opinion of any other agency,

387
00:18:48.552 --> 00:18:50.552
organization, employer,

388
00:18:50.552 --> 00:18:52.755
or company associated with
StrictlyBusinessPodcast.com.

389
00:18:53.216 --> 00:19:00.182
Assumptions made on the analyses are not
reflective of the position of any other

390
00:19:00.182 --> 00:19:02.182
entity other than the speaker or the
author.

391
00:19:02.182 --> 00:19:06.367
And since we are critically thinking human
beings, these views are always subject to

392
00:19:06.367 --> 00:19:08.367
change, revision,

393
00:19:08.367 --> 00:19:08.509
and rethinking at any time.

394
00:19:08.809 --> 00:19:11.231
Please do not hold us to them in
perpetuity.
